Histoire de la Littérature Anglaise (Volume 2 de 5)
And ye, the breathing roses of the wood,
Fair silver-buskin'd nymphs....
They left us, when the grey-hooded Even,
Like a sad votarist in a palmer's weed,
Rose from the hindmost wheels of Phœbus's wain....
.... In the violet-embroidered vales....
.... Flowery-kirtled naiades....
All the sea-girt isles,
That like to rich and various gems, inlay
The unadorned bosom of the deep....
489: At a solemn music. Lycidas.
That undisturbed song of pure concent,
Ay sung before the saphir-color'd throne,
To him that sit thereon,
With saintly shout and solemn jubilee,
Where the bright seraphim, in burning row,
Their loud-uplifted angel-trumpets blow.
490: Lycidas.
491:
Ye valleys low, where the mild whispers use
Of shades, and wanton winds, and gushing brooks,
On whose fresh lap the swart star sparely looks,
Throw hither all your quaint enamel'd eyes,
That on the green turf suck the honey'd show'rs,
And purple all the ground with vernal flow'rs.
Bring the rath primrose that forsaken dies,
The tufted crow-toe, and pale jessamine,
The white-pink, and the pansy freak'd with jet,
The glowing violet,
The musk-rose, and the well-attir'd wood-bine
With cowslips wan that hang the pensive head,
And ev'ry flow'r that sad embroid'ry wears:
Bid amaranthus all his beauty shed,
And daffodillies fill their cups with tears,
To strew the laureate hearse where Lycid lies.
492: Faust, Prolog im Himmel.
493: Voyez dans Lycidas la prophétie contre l'archevêque Laud:
But that two-handed engin at the door,
Stands ready to smite once and smite no more.
494: Arcades.
495:
But else in deep of night, when drowsiness
Hath locked up mortal sense, then listen I
To the celestial Sirens' harmony,
That sit upon the nine infolded spheres,
And sing to those that hold the vital shears,
And turn the adamantin spindle round,
On which the fate of gods and man is wound;
Such sweet compulsion doth in music lie,
To lull the daughters of Necessity,
And keep unsteady Nature to her law,
And the low world in measured motion draw
After the heavenly tune, which none can hear
Of human mold with gross unpurged ear.
496: These abilities, wheresoever they be found, are the inspired gift of God, rarely bestowed, but yet to some (though most abuse) in every nation; and are of power, beside the office of a pulpit, to imbreed and cherish in a great people the seeds of virtue and public civility, to allay the perturbations of the mind, and set the affections in right tune; to celebrate in glorious and lofty hymns the throne and equipage of God's almightiness, and what he works, and what he suffers to be wrought with high providence in his church; to sing victorious agonies of martyrs and saints, the deeds and triumphs of just and pious nations, doing valiantly through faith against the enemies of Christ. (Reason of Church government.)
497:
And in thy right-hand lead with thee
The mountain-nymph, sweet Liberty:
And, if I give thee honour due,
Mirth, admit me of thy crew,
To live with her, and live with thee,
In unreproved pleasures free....
To hear the lark begin his flight,
And singing startle the dull night,
From his watch-tower in the skies,
Till the dappled dawn doth rise;
Then to come, in spite of sorrow,
And at my window bid good-morrow,
Through the sweet-brier, or the vine,
Or the twisted eglantine:
While the ploughman near at hand
Whistles o'er the furrow'd land,
And the milk-maid singeth blithe,
And the mower whets his scythe,
And ev'ry shepherd tells his tale,
Under the hawthorn in the dale....
Sometimes, with secure delight,
The upland hamlets will invite,
When the merry bells ring round,
And the jocund rebecks sound
To many a youth and many a maid,
Dancing in the chequer'd shade;
And young and old come forth to play
On a sunshine holiday....
Towered cities please us then,
And the busy hum of men,
Where throngs of knights and barons bold,
In weeds of peace high triumphs hold...
And ever against eating cares,
Lap me in soft Lydian airs,
Married to immortal verse,
Such as the meeting soul may pierce,
In notes, with many a winding bout
Of linked sweetness long drawn out?
With wanton heed, and giddy cunning,
The melting voice through mazes running;
Untwisting all the chains that tie
The hidden soul of harmony.
498: Il Penseroso.
499:
Come, pensive nun, devout and pure,
Sober, steadfast, and demure,
All in a robe of darkest grain,
Flowing with majestic train,
And sable stole of cypress-lawn,
Over thy decent shoulders drawn.
Come, but keep thy wonted state,
With even step, and musing gait,
And looks commercing with the skies,
Thy rapt soul sitting in thine eyes....
Some still removed place will fit,
Where glowing embers through the room
Teach light to counterfeit a gloom;
Far from all resort of mirth,
Save the cricket on the earth,
Or the bellman's drowsy charm,
To bless the doors from nightly harm.
Or let my lamp, at midnight hour,
Be seen in some high lonely tow'r,
Where I may oft out-watch the Bear,
With thrice-great Hermes; or unsphere
The spirit of Plato, to unfold
What worlds, or what vast regions, hold
The immortal mind that hath forsook
Her mansion in this fleshly nook.
Me, Goddess, bring
To arched walks of twilight groves,
And shadows brown, that Sylvan loves,
Of pine, or monumental oak,
Where the rude axe, with heaved stroke,
Was never heard the nymphs to daunt,
Or fright them from their hallow'd haunt.
There in close covert by some brook,
Where no profaner eye may look,
Hide me from the day garish light.
But let my due feet never fail
To walk the studious cloisters pale;
And love the high embowed roof,
With antic pillars massy proof,
And storied windows richly dight,
Casting a dim religious light.
There let the pealing organ blow
To the full-voic'd quire below,
In service high, and anthems clear,
As may with sweetness, through mine ear,
Dissolve me into ecstacies,
And bring all heav'n before mine eyes.
500:
Before the starry threshold of Jove's court
My mansion is, where those immortal shapes
Of bright aereal spirits live insphered
In regions mild of calm and serene air,
Above the smoke and stir of this dim spot,
Which men call Earth, and with low-thoughted care
Confin'd, and pestered in this pin-fold here,
Strive to keep up a frail and feverish being,
Unmindful of the crown that Virtue gives
After this mortal change, to her true servants
Amongst the enthron'd gods on sainted seats.
The sounds and seas, with all their finny drove,
Now to the moon in wavering morrice move;
And on the tawny sands and shelves
Trip the pert fairies and the dapper elves.
501:
At last a soft and solemn breathing sound
Rose like a steam of rich distilled perfumes,
And stole upon the air.
O welcome pure-eyed Faith, white-handed Hope,
Thou hov'ring angel, girt with golden wings,
And thou, unblemish'd form of Chastity!
I see ye visibly, and now believe
That He, the Supreme Good, to whom all things ill
Are but as slavish officers of vengeance,
Would send a glist'ring guardian, if need were,
To keep my life and honour unassail'd.
Was I deceiv'd, or did a sable cloud
Turn forth her silver lining on the night?
I did not err; there does a sable cloud
Turn forth her silver lining on the night,
And casts a gleam over this tufted grove.
502:
Can any mortal mixture of earth's mould
Breathe such divine enchanting ravishment?
Sure something holy lodges in that breast,
And with these raptures moves the vocal air
To testify his hidden residence:
How sweetly did they float upon the wings
Of silence, through the empty vaulted night,
At every fall smoothing the raven down
Of darkness, till it smil'd! I have oft heard
My mother Circe, with the Syrens three,
Amidst the flowery-kirtled Naiades,
Culling their potent herbs and baleful drugs,
Who, as they sung, would take the prison'd soul
And lap it in Elysium: Scylla wept,
And chid her barking waves into attention.
And fell Charybdis murmur'd soft applause.
Yet they in pleasing slumber lull'd the sense,
And in sweet madness robb'd it of itself;
But such a sacred and home-felt delight,
Such sober certainty of waking bliss,
I never heard till now.
503:
But when lust,
By unchaste looks, loose gestures, and foul talk,
But most by lewd and lavish act of sin,
Lets in defilement to the inward parts,
The soul grows clotted by contagion,
Imbodies and imbrutes till she quite lose
The divine property of her first being;
Such are these thick and gloomy shadows damp
Oft seen in charnel-vaults and sepulchres,
Lingering and sitting by a new-made grave,
As loathe to leave the body that it loved.
504:
To the ocean now I fly,
And those happy climes that lie
Where day never shuts his eye,
Up in the broad fields of the sky:
There I suck the liquid air
All amidst the gardens fair
Of Hesperus and his daughters three
That sing about the golden tree:
Along the crisped shades and bowers
Revels the spruce and jocund spring;
The Graces, and the rosy-bosom'd Hours
Thither all their bounties bring;
There eternal summer dwells,
And west-winds, with musky wing,
About the cedar'n alleys fling
Nard and cassia's balmy smells.
Iris there with humid bow
Waters the odorous banks, that blow
Flowers of more mingled hue
Than her purfled scarf can shew;
And drenches with Elysian dew
(List, mortals, if your ears be true)
Beds of hyacinth and roses,
Where young Adonis oft reposes,
Waxing well of his deep wound
In slumber soft, and on the ground
Sadly sits the Assyrian queen:
But far above in spangled sheen
Celestial Cupid, her fam'd son, advanc'd,
Holds his dear Psyche sweet entranc'd
After her wandering labours long,
Till free consent the gods among
Make her his eternal bride,
And from her fair unspotted side
Two blissful twins are to be born,
Youth and Joy; so Jove hath sworn.
But now my task is smoothly done,
I can fly, or I can run,
Quickly to the green earth's end,
Where the bow'd welkin slow doth bend;
And from thence can soar as soon
To the corners of the moon.
Mortals, that would follow me,
Love Virtue; she alone is free:
She can teach ye how to climb
Higher than the sphery chime;
Or if Virtue feeble were,
Heaven itself would stoop to her.
505: Edward King, 1637.
506:
"And from that time see,
How beauty is excell'd by manly grace,
And wisdom, which alone is truly fair."
So spoke our general mother, and with eyes
Of conjugal attraction unreproved,
And meek surrender, half-embracing lean'd
On our first father; half her swelling breast
Naked met his, under the flowing gold
Of his loose tresses hid; he in delight
Both of her beauty and submissive charms
Smiled with superior love....
And press'd her matron lip
With kisses pure.
(Liv. IV.)
507:
Fair consort, the hour
Of night and all things now retired to rest
Mind us of like repose; since God hath set
Labour and rest, as day and night, to men
Successive; and the timely dew of sleep,
Now falling with soft slumbrous weight, inclines
Our eyelids. Other creatures all day long
Rove idle, unemployed, and less need rest.
Man hath his daily work of body or mind
Appointed, which declares his dignity
And the regard of Heaven on all his ways,
While other animals inactive range,
And of their doings God takes no account.
(Ibid.)
508: Impossible qu'un homme si docte, si raisonneur, s'emploie pour toute occupation à jardiner, à arranger des bouquets.
509:
Know that in the soul
Are many lesser faculties, that serve
Reason as chief; among these Fancy next
Her office holds; of all external things,
Which the five watchful senses represent,
She forms imaginations, aery shapes,
Which Reason joining or disjoining, frames
All what we affirm or we deny, and call
Our knowledge and opinion....
Oft in her absence, mimic Fancy wakes
To imitate her; but, misjoining shapes,
Wild work produces oft, and most in dreams,
Ill matching words and deeds long past or late.
Yet be not sad.
Evil into the mind of God or man
May come and go, so unapproved, and leave
No spot or blame behind.
(Liv. V.)
510:
Go with speed,
And what thy stores contain bring forth and pour
Abundance, fit to honour and receive
Our heavenly stranger.
511:
He
Beholding shall confess, that here on Earth
God has dispensed his bounties as in Heaven....
What choice to choose for delicacy best,
What order so contrived as not to mix
Tastes not well join'd, inelegant, but bring
Taste after taste upheld with kindliest change?
.... For drink the grape
She crushes, inoffensive must, and meaths
From many a berry, and from sweet kernels press'd
She tempers dulcet creams.
512:
Adam.... walks forth, without more train
Accompanied than with his own complete
Perfection, in himself was all his state....
513:
No fear lest dinner cool....
So down they sat,
And to their viands fell; not seemingly
The Angel, nor in mist, the common glose
Of theologians, but with keen dispatch
Of real hunger, and concoctive heat
To transsubstantiate. What redounds transpires
Through spirits, with ease....
514:
So spake our Sire, and by his countenance seem'd
Entering on studious thought abstruse; which Eve
Perceiving, where she sat retired in sight,
With lowliness majestic from her seat,
And grace that won who saw to wish her stay,
Rose, and went forth among her fruits and flowers....
Her nursery....
Her husband the relater she preferr'd....
«But apt the mind or fancy is to rove
Unchecked, and of her roving is no end,
Till warn'd or by experience taught, she learn
That, not to know at large of things remote
From us, obscure and subtle, but to know
That which before us lies in daily life,
Is the prime wisdom. What is more is fume,
Or emptiness, or fond impertinence,
And renders us, in things that most concern,
Unpractised, unprepared, and still to seek.»
(Liv. VIII.)
515:
Nothing lovelier can be found,
In woman, as to study household good,
And good works in her husband to promote.
(Liv. IX.)
516:
His forbidding
Commends thee more, while it infers the good
By thee communicated and our want;
For good unknown is sure not had; or, had,
And yet unknown, is as not had at all....
Such prohibitions bind not.
(Liv. IX.)
517:
I made him just and right,
Sufficient to have stood, though free to fall.
Such I created all the etherial powers
And spirits, both them who stood and them who fail'd....
Not free, what proof would had they given sincere
Of true allegiance, constant faith, or love,
Where only what they needs must do appeared,
Not what they would? What praise could they receive?
What pleasure I from such obedience paid,
When will and reason (reason also is choice)
Useless and vain, of freedom both despoil'd,
Made passive both, had served necessity,
Not me? They therefore, as to right belong'd,
So were created, nor can justly accuse
Their Maker, or their making, or their fate,
As if predestination over-ruled
Their will disposed by absolute decree
Or high foreknowledge. They themselves decreed
Their own revolt, not I. If I foreknew,
Foreknowledge had no influence on their fault,
Who had no less proved certain unforeknown.
So without least impulse or shadow of fate,
Or aught by me immutably foreseen,
They trespass, authors to themselves in all
Both what they judge and choose.
(Liv. III.)
518: Fin du deuxième Faust.—Prologue dans le ciel.
519:
This let him know,
Lest, wilfully transgressing, he pretend
Surprisal, unadmonish'd, unforewarn'd.
(Liv. V.)
520:
But us he sends upon his high behests
For state, as sovran king; and to inure
Our prompt obedience....
Glad we return'd up to the coasts of light
Ere Sabbath-evening. So we had in charge.
(Liv. VIII.)
521:
Those who
Melodious hymns, about the sovran throne,
Alternate all night long.
522: Cela fait penser à l'histoire d'Irax, dans Voltaire, condamné à souffrir sans trêve et sans fin les éloges de quatre chambellans, et cette cantate:
Que son mérite est extrême!
Que de grâces, que de grandeur!
Ah! combien monseigneur
Doit être content de lui-même!
523:
Ten thousand thousand ensigns high advanced,...
And for distinction serve
Of hierarchies, of order, and degree,
Or in their glittering tissues bear emblazed
Holy memorials, acts of zeal and love
Recorded eminent.....
To him shall bow
All knees in Heaven; him who disobeys
Me disobeys....
All seem'd well pleased; all seem'd, but were not all.
That day, as other solemn days, they spent
In song and dance about the sacred hill....
Forthwith from dance to sweet repast they turn
Desirous; all in circles as they stood
Tables are set.
(Liv. V.)
524: Dieu est si bien rabaissé jusqu'à la condition de roi et d'homme, qu'il dit (à la vérité ironiquement) des vers comme ceux-ci:
«Lest unawary we lose
This place, our sanctuary, our hill.»
Son fils, un jeune chevalier qui va faire ses premières armes, lui répond:
If I be found the worst in heaven, etc.
525:
O argument blasphemous, and proud.
526:
Vanguard, to right and left the front unfold....
Leader, the terms we sent were terms of weight,
Of hard contents, and full of force urged home....
Who receives them right
Has need from head to foot well understand.
(Liv. VI.)
527: Par exemple celle de Raphaël aux portes de l'enfer. Il s'ennuya fort, et fut «très-joyeux» de revenir au ciel.
528: Quand Raphaël descend sur la terre, les anges qui montent la garde autour du paradis lui présentent les armes.
Le trait désagréable et marquant de ce paradis, c'est que le moteur universel y est l'obéissance, tandis que chez Dante c'est l'amour.
Lowly reverent
They bow....
Our happy state
Hold, like yours, while our obedience holds.
529:
In this the region, this the soil, the clime,
Said then the lost Archangel, this the seat
That we must change for Heav'n? this mournful gloom
For that celestial light? Be it so, since he
Who now is sov'reign can dispose and bid
What shall be right; farthest from him is best;
Whom reason has equall'd, force has made supreme
Above his equals.—Farewell, happy fields,
Where joy for ever dwells! Hail, horrors, hail!
Infernal world, and thou, profoundest hell,
Receive thy new possessor! one who brings
A mind not to be chang'd by place or time:
The mind is its own place; and in itself
Can make a Heav'n of Hell, a Hell of Heav'n.
What matter where, if I be still the same?
And what I should be, all but less than He
Whom thunder has made greater? Here, at least,
We shall be free; th'Almighty hath not built
Here for his envy, will not drive us hence:
Here we may reign secure; and, in my choice,
To reign is worth ambition, though in Hell:
Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.
530:
The inconquerable will
And study of revenge, immortal hate,
And courage never to submit or yield,
And what is else not to be overcome:
That glory never shall his wrath or might
Extort from me.
(Liv. I.)
531:
He views
The dismal situation waste and wild:
A dungeon terrible on all sides round,
As one great furnace flamed: yet from those flames
No light, but rather darkness visible
Served only to discover sights of woe,
Regions of sorrow, doleful shades....
«Seest thou yon dreary plain, forlorn and wild,
The seat of desolation, void of light,
Save what the glimmering of these livid flames
Cast pale and dreadful?»
(Liv. I.)
Beyond this flood a frozen continent
Lies dark and wild, beat with perpetual storms,
Of whirlwind and dire hail, which on firm land
Thaws not, but gathers heap, and ruin seems
Of ancient pile.
(Liv. II.)
As when Heaven's fire
Hath scathed the forest oaks or mountain pines,
With singed top their stately growth, though bare,
Stands on the blasted heath.
(Liv. I.)
532:
In bulk as huge....
As that sea-beast
Leviathan, which God of all his works
Created hugest that swim the ocean stream.
Him, haply, slumbering on the Norway foam
The pilot of some small night-founder'd skiff,
Deeming some island, oft, as seamen tell,
With fixed anchor in his scaly rind,
Moors by his side under the lee, while night
Invests the sea, and wished morn delays.
(Liv. I.)
533:
At least appear
Hell bounds, high reaching to the horrid roof,
And thrice threefold the gates: three folds were brass,
Three iron, three of adamantine rock
Impenetrable, impaled with circling fire,
Yet unconsumed.—Before the gates there sat
On either side a formidable shape.
The one seem'd a woman to the waist, and fair,
But ended foul in many a scaly fold
Voluminous and vast: a serpent arm'd
With mortal sting. About her middle round
A cry of Hell-hounds never ceasing bark'd
With wide Cerberean mouths full loud, and rung
A hideous peal; yet, when they list, would creep,
If aught disturb'd their noise, into her womb,
And kennel there: yet there still bark'd and howl'd,
Within, unseen....
The other shape,
If shape it might be call'd that shape had none
Distinguishable in member, joint or limb;
Or substance might be call'd that shadow seem'd,
For each seem'd either; black it stood as night,
Fierce as ten Furies, terrible as Hell,
And shook a dreadful dart; what seem'd his head
The likeness of a kingly crown had on.
Satan was now at hand, and from his seat
The monster moving onward came as fast
With horrid strides; Hell trembled as he strode.
The undaunted Fiend what this might be admired,
Admired, not fear'd.
(Liv. II.)
534:
On heavenly ground they stood; and from the shore
They view'd the vast immeasurable abyss
Outrageous as a sea, dark, wasteful, wild,
Up from the bottom turn'd by tempestuous winds
And surging waves, as mountains, to assault
Heaven's height and with the centre mix the pole.
"Silence, ye troubled waves, and thou, Deep, peace,"
Said then the omnific word; "your discord end!"....
.... Let there be light, said God, and forthwith Light
Etherial, first of things, quintessence pure,
Sprung from the deep; and from her native East
To journey through the very gloom began,
Sphered in a radiant cloud....
The Earth was form'd; but in the womb as yet
Of waters, embryon immature involved,
Appear'd not: over al the faces of Earth
Main Ocean flow'd, not idle; but, with warm
Prolific humour softening all her globe,
Fermented the great mother to conceive,
Satiate with genial moisture; when God said:
"Be gather'd now, ye water under Heaven,
"Into one place, and let dry land appear."
Immediately the mountains huge appear
Emergent, and their broad bare backs upheave
Into the clouds; their tops ascend the sky.
So high as heaved the tumid hills, so low
Down sunk a hollow bottom broad and deep
Capacious bed of waters. Thither they
Hasted with glad precipitance, unroll'd,
As drops on dust conglobing from the dry.
535:
The sun now fallen....
Arraying with reflected purple and gold
The clouds that on his western throne attend.
Now came still Evening on, and Twilight gray
Had in her sober livery all things clad;
Silence accompanied: for beast and bird,
They to their grassy couch, these to their nests,
Were slunk, all but the wakeful nightingale;
She all night long her amorous descant sung;
Silence was pleas'd: now glow'd the firmament
With living sapphires; Hesperus that led
The starry host, rode brightest, till the moon,
Rising in clouded majesty, at length
Apparent queen, unveil'd her peerless light,
And o'er the dark her silver mantle threw.